The Great Brain Robbery (4 page)

‘Hey, Dave! Hey, Charlie!’ Frankie waved to two of his classmates, ‘What’s up with everyone today?’ Dave and Charlie glanced at each other awkwardly then looked at
the ground.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Frankie. ‘Did I miss something?’

‘Ummm,’ Dave started. ‘No, Frankie. It’s just . . . we can’t be your friends any more.’

Frankie felt his cheeks flush red. ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘What did Timmy say?’

Charlie shuffled his feet. ‘He said that if we speak to you, he won’t let us come over to his house to play.’ Dave was so embarrassed he couldn’t even look Frankie in the
eye. ‘I’m really sorry, Frankie, but he’s got a Mechanimal racetrack you know, and . . .’

‘I know,’ Frankie replied sadly as the two boys shuffled guiltily away.

Frankie felt like a walking dustbin. He had never been so miserable. He thought about his best friends, Neet and Wes. He hadn’t seen them for so long he’d almost forgotten what it
was like to have friends. Frankie sighed and pushed his hands deep into his empty pockets. Had Wes stopped writing because he didn’t want to be friends either? And what about Neet? Would she
still be his pal when she came back to school?

He heard some whoops and cheers coming from near the climbing frame. A crowd of children was hopping up and down as Timmy, prince of the playground, let them take turns with his new
remote-controlled Mechanicopter. Frankie turned around and trudged back across the playground, his heart sinking all the way down to the bottom of his wellies.

‘Oh dear, you look glum,’ said Eddie, the moment Frankie walked through the door that evening. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

Alphonsine clasped Frankie’s face between her hands and studied him carefully.

‘You is right, Eddie,’ said Alphonsine. ‘A face like a soggy pancake. What is the bother, little cabbage?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Frankie, trying to sound cheerful. ‘I’m just tired.’ But Alfie and Eddie were far too old and far too wise to believe him. They sat him down on
the sofa and made him a cup of hot chocolate while Colette gave his cheek a friendly lick.

‘Spill the peas, Frankie,’ smiled Alphonsine. So Frankie spilled all the peas he had. He told them about the teasing and the fight and Timmy Snodgrass and feeling like a walking
dustbin. As he let all the words come tumbling out, Alphonsine nodded her grey head and patted him gently on the knee.

‘Don’t you worry, little cabbage,’ she said kindly. ‘You don’t need this Timmy What’s-his-face.’

‘Snodgrass,’ Frankie sighed.

‘Exactly,’ said Alphonsine. ‘You do not need this Timmy Snotgrass.’

Frankie giggled. ‘
Snod
grass.’

‘But zat is what I said!’ grinned Alphonsine. ‘Zis Timmy Snottypants is not a proper friend.’ Frankie spluttered with laughter. ‘Is that not right,
Eddie?’

‘That’s right,’ said Eddie. ‘Proper friends don’t behave like that, do they, Colette?’ Colette yelped and gave Frankie another lick on the cheek.

‘Proper friends,’ Alphonsine continued, raising one finger in the air, ‘is not like toys. You do not pick zem up and put zem down and get bored with zem. You do not swap zem or
take zem to the dump when they get old. No! A proper friend is for life, not just for Christmas!’

‘But . . . I don’t have
any
friends,’ said Frankie. ‘Nobody wants to be my friend any more.’

‘Nonsenses,’ Alphonsine replied, squeezing his shoulders tightly. ‘We is all your friends, is we not?’ Eddie and Colette nodded vigorously. ‘And we think you is
fine and dandy as you are.’

Frankie looked around at the three kind, smiling faces. For that moment he felt as warm and safe as a bird in a nest.

By the time Frankie went to bed that night, he was so tired a brass band couldn’t have kept him awake. So at first he couldn’t work out whether what he saw was just
an effect of his exhausted imagination.

It was at that time of the night when sleepers sink into the darkest depths of slumber. It was just at the moment when Frankie touched the bottom of the dark, watery world of dreams, that he had
the oddest sensation. He felt a strange pressure on his chest and his ears filled with an uncomfortable electrical crackling. Opening his eyes wide, he saw that his bedroom was bathed in a weird
blue light. Perched on his chest, looking straight at him with swivelling mechanical eyes, was his Gadget the Rabbit, glowing like a blue beacon, sparks flying between his long mechanical ears.

Frankie screamed and jumped out of bed. Immediately, the blue light vanished and, by the time Alphonsine burst into his room waving a burglar-bashing tennis racket, everything looked perfectly
normal. Gadget had tumbled to the floor and was lying on the rug like a completely normal toy.

‘Where is he? Where’s he hiding himself?’ yelled Alphonsine, leaping round the room swinging her racket like a champion.

‘There’s nobody here, Alfie,’ said Frankie, feeling bewildered. ‘At least I don’t think so.’

‘Then why all this hollering and squallering, Frankie?’ Alphonsine asked. ‘It is bang-wallop in the middle of the night!’

‘Sorry, Alfie, I think I had a bad dream. That’s all.’

Alphonsine tucked him back into bed. ‘Ah,’ she said, nodding wisely, ‘nightscares are terrible things.’

‘Night
mares,
’ Frankie corrected her, smiling.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Alphonsine, ‘but lucky for us, nightscares are not real.’

‘You’re right,’ said Frankie, as Alphonsine kissed him goodnight, ‘nightscares aren’t real.’

All the same, before Frankie turned out the light he picked up Gadget the Rabbit, put him in the bottom of his wardrobe, and shut the door.

Frankie stamped his feet and clapped his hands against the cold morning air as he waited for Mrs Pinkerton to blow the whistle. As usual, he was sitting on the bench, waiting
for playtime to end. Never in a million years had Frankie thought he would actually prefer lessons to playtime, but when you have no one to play with, double Maths with Mr Gripe suddenly
doesn’t seem so bad.

‘What are you doing over here?’ said a bright, smiley voice.

Frankie looked up. ‘Neet!’ he cried. Frankie sprang to his feet and gave his best friend a hug. ‘You’re back!’

Neet grinned. ‘Good to see you, Frankie!’ she smiled. ‘Chickenpox is rubbish, by the way, don’t try it.’

‘I won’t,’ Frankie giggled. He was so glad to have Neet back again. Everything was better when she was around.

‘Wanna go play with the others?’ asked Neet. Frankie wasn’t sure what to say.

‘Errr . . . I think . . . um . . . no, not really,’ he stammered.

‘What’s the matter?’ Neet frowned.

‘Well . . . nobody’s talking to me. Timmy told them not to.’ Frankie looked at his friend. ‘And if he sees
you
talking to me, well . . .’

Neet’s eyes went as round as ping-pong balls.

‘Well what?’ she said, folding her arms crossly. ‘I’m not doing what Timmy Snotbags tells me to. Oooh!’ she growled, ‘he gets right up my nose. Tell you what,
I’m going over there right now and—’

‘No, wait!’ said Frankie, catching her arm. ‘It’s OK. Anyway . . .’ Frankie shuffled awkwardly. ‘I already walloped him once.’

‘Really?’ beamed Neet. ‘Good for you, Frankie!’ Frankie grinned. He was so, so glad that Neet was back.

‘Have you heard from Wes?’ he asked as they wandered across the playground to where Mrs Pinkerton was blowing the whistle for assembly. ‘He’s not been in touch with me
since he went off to stay with his aunt.’ Wes had been one of Frankie and Neet’s closest allies. He was only seven but he was such a smartypants that he had been put into the same class
as the older kids. He had been a real help to Frankie and Neet when there had been all that ‘trouble’ at the school the year before. But now he had left and nobody seemed to quite know
where he’d gone.

‘No,’ said Neet, shaking her head. ‘Not a peep. Poor Wes, it’s terrible, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’ said Frankie.

‘Didn’t you hear?’ said Neet, surprised. ‘His mum and dad went missing on safari. Nobody knows what happened to them.’

‘That’s awful!’ gasped Frankie.

‘You bet,’ said Neet. ‘Mrs Pinkerton told me he’d gone to stay with his Auntie Elvira, but Mrs Pinkerton didn’t have the address. He must have left in a
hurry.’

‘That’s weird,’ frowned Frankie. ‘Why wouldn’t Wes tell us where he was going?’

‘I know!’ said Neet. ‘And there’s another thing too, Frankie. It probably doesn’t matter, but I thought I should tell you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Well,’ said Neet, ‘I heard that Snuffles escaped over the summer.’ Frankie stopped dead in his tracks.

For those of you who don’t know who Snuffles is, let me explain. As I said earlier, there had been an awful lot of ‘trouble’ at Frankie and Neet’s school. Back then
Cramley Primary had been a very different place, a much, much scarier place called Crammar Grammar. The old headmaster, Dr Calus Gore, had been a mad scientist who used the school as his laboratory
and the children as guinea-pigs. He had wanted to use his scientific wizardry to turn every child in the school into an exam-passing robot with his terrifying Brain-drain machine. But luckily
Frankie, Neet and Wes had put a stop to his plans just in the nick of time. While they were at it, they accidentally turned the headmaster into a fluffy white rat called Snuffles – which was
a bit of a bonus. Ever since, Snuffles had been safely locked up in a cage in the first-year classroom. Or so Frankie had thought.

‘How did he get out?’ whispered Frankie, horrified.

‘I don’t know,’ said Neet, ‘but I don’t suppose we need to worry.’

‘Hmmm.’ Frankie’s brow crinkled up like a crisp. He wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t forgotten Dr Gore’s hair-raising experiments on his classmates, or the time when
the headmaster had locked him in a dark cupboard for hours on end. He hadn’t forgotten Dr Gore’s acid yellow eyes or his rasping voice. Dr Gore was as crackers as a parrot and as
dangerous as a snake. But Neet was right, wasn’t she? What harm could he possibly do now? Frankie shuddered and tried to shrug off the cold hand of fear that had gripped the nape of his
neck.

‘Come on, Frankie,’ said Neet. ‘We’ll be late for assembly!’

The assembly hall was abuzz with excitement. Children were whispering frantically and every now and then a little squeal trilled round the room. Even Mrs Pinkerton looked
pinker than usual.